Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The House on Blackstone Moor by Carole Gill: Nurture Tour Stop

This Tour Stop features My Book Review, An Interview with Carole Gill, and a Free Print Book Giveaway.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Author: Carole Gill

Genre: Fiction - Gothic/Paranormal/Romance

Published by: Vamplit Publishing

Publication Date: December 17th, 2010

Age Restriction: 18+

Content Warning: Contains some graphic content towards the end.

Recommended Age: 18+

Format(s): eBook, Perfect Paperback

Number of pages: 251

Synopsis:This is a tale of vampirism, madness, obsession and devil worship as Rose Baines, only survivor of her family's carnage, tells her story. Fragile, damaged by tragedy, fate sends her to a desolate house on the haunted moors where demons dwell. The house and the moors have hideous secrets, yet there is love too; deep, abiding, eternal, but it comes with a price, her soul.

Excerpt:

They said my father was mad, corrupted by evil and tainted with sin, which is why he did what he did. I came home to find them all dead; their throats had been savagely cut.

My sisters only five and eight were gone as well as my brother who was twelve. My mother lay butchered in her marriage bed. The bed her children were born in.

I discovered him first—in the sitting-room afloat in a sea of crimson—the bloody razor still clutched in his hand.

How pitiful I must have looked, bent down trying to wake him. Calling to him over and over, “Papa please… Please wake-up.”

He could not of course. No more would he open his eyes in this world, had I not been struck mad I would have realized.

Yet madness is sometimes a mercy and when shadows come to take the horror away it is a good thing.

Do not pull away in terror, please. I have much to confess. Just be patient, for I promise I will tell you everything. The only thing I ask in return is for you not to judge me until you hear my entire story.

Carole will be giving away a FREE PRINT COPY of The House on Blackstone Moor to one lucky winner.Just leave a comment along with your email address for your chance to win.Tweet about this Nurture Tour Stop Interview/Giveaway for +2 extra entries. Just copy the Tweet’s URL into the comments, as well. Giveaway ends Saturday July 9th at 11:59 PM CDT. (US/CAN/UK) ***Winner is Marybelle***

Carole Gill wrote her first story at age 8. It was science fiction. She switched to horror in her teens and has been writing ever since.In 2000, she was selected by North West Playwrights of England for further development but found she preferred fiction writing (novels and short stories). However the experience enhanced her ability to write dialogue.

Widely published in horror and sci-fi anthologies, The House on Blackstone Moor, published by Vamplit, is Carole's first novel. It is the tale of vampirism, madness, obsession and devil worship. Set in 19th Century Yorkshire, its locales include Victorian madhouses as well as barren, wind-swept Yorkshire moors.

The story is a marriage of horror and gothic romance. The sequel, Unholy Testament will be released later this year. A former New Yorker but resident in England and residing in Yorkshire gave her the knowledge of the area the novel is set in. Also, as a great admirer of the Brontes and frequent visitor to the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth, she found herself obsessed with recreating the gothic romance narrative.Also, having been employed in a hospital which has been historically a workhouse and asylum in Victorian times, Carole was able to add great realism to the depiction of the asylums as described in her novel.

Where you can find and follow Carole Gill:

I am so pleased to have this chance to chat with Carole Gill and hear some of her thoughts on topics that are near and dear to my heart. So to begin, what can you tell us about your current release?

The story concerns a young woman, Rose who asks throughout the novel if an act of evil can open the way for more evil to come in. She’s referring to her father. Though not graphic, there is the issue of child abuse in the novel.

Rose comes home to find her mad, incestuous father has murdered her family and himself. The reader will follow her on a dark journey, a journey where there is unimaginable horror but where there is also love, the greatest she could have wished for—yet there is a price.

Human evil as well as supernatural evil is represented here. There are fallen angels, and demonic beings including Satan.

As for vampires, well they’re present also. But they are presented differently. They are tragic beings who return from hell differently - some changed, others barely changed at all. And if they haven’t their souls, they do have a memory of love to sustain them.

There is another point which lies at the heart of the novel. Creatures damned through no fault of their own exist in this novel and force the reader to ponder that terrible truth: if your father sinned against heaven by supporting Lucifer what could you possibly do about it? As Louis Darton says, if you knew there was no redemption, no promise of heaven—what hope could you have?

Both Louis and his evil counterpart are two sides of the same coin. One good, the other evil, one supporting Satan and the other determined to do as he says less evil than himself. This is the essence of my book, the love—the hope, the tragedy of fate the unalterable destiny of all beings supernatural and human.

Tell us about your next release.

The sequel, Unholy Testament is being written because of reader response. I was told by readers that they could not forget the characters in the novel. My publisher suggested the idea of a sequel which I jumped at.

The testament referred to in the title is the confession of a demonic being. The demon spawn Eco who has written a detailed confession of his entire existence.

It’s an act of penance but it is also his way he hopes of coming clean. He has fallen in love and he wants so much to have the object of his desire read his worse sins. In that way he hopes for redemption and for her love.

Is he insane? Of course he is and as one reviewer said delightfully so. Yet he is also intelligent enough to realize that evil can never really overtake good to win against heaven. Knowing this I think feeds into his madness.

He is Satan’s servant and as such he has many obligations he undertakes. The reader will read of his experiences in 1st Century Jerusalem, in ancient Transylvania—during the crusades, the Black Death, and so on. There are hideous discoveries and shocks along the way as well as the reaction of she who reads this journal, a woman held captive aboard a rather unusual ship.

Who is your favorite author?

My favorite I’d have to say is Daphne DuMaurier. Her novels are beautifully written, the stories are unforgettable, the characters vivid and exquisitely drawn. There is great darkness too, tragedy and irony--love and hate with love sometimes triumphing but not necessarily which, in my opinion, makes her books great because as in life there is unpredicatablity.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned while writing your books?

If I suspected before that characters can give me a story, I learned without doubt that they can. When they are so vivid in my mind that I know instinctively how they will react in any given situation, I know I have my story. It was not only surprising it was an incredible discovery!

Plotter or Pantser? Why?

My favorite question! Pantser! I tried for so long to plot and outline. I agree with what Stephen King advises in On Writing. That is to keep the plot under house arrest.I get paralyzed with an outline. It is completely impossible for me to write with one.

I have a basic one. I know how my novel should begin and end, but that’s it.

If I think of the story in three lines or so, I can then begin to imagine the characters that would be contained within. I think of those characters as I begin the first chapter and the next—and I keep going. I do not edit or worry about what I’m typing. I just carry on.

What I might have at the end of it is a zero draft which then becomes a reasonable first draft which is then polished into a final draft. A writer friend of mine said our zero draft is our outline.

Pantser or plotter, I don’t think one can change, we are what we are. We can learn to sharpen our skills but our basic modus operandi is permanent in my opinion.

How do you develop your plots and your characters? Do you use any set formula?

No formula at all. My plot is in my head basically. I have an idea of where it’s going to go, but I also know it might change. The characters , whether demonic or not are each imbued with their own personalities, desire—loves, hates, resentment—they each have a past history. Since they are like that they have emotional baggage. This then causes them to behave as they do.

They might kill one another or want to IF I GIVE THEM THE OPPORTUNITY! That’s where I come in. They might get along or not. One might forgive the other or possibly not. If something else is introduced into the equation, it might create something explosive. On the other hand if something is removed, that might set into motion a series of amazing things I never envisioned! I loved being surprised!

Do you have a website or Blog?

I don’t like websites because they’re static. Even if I update them, they still look static to me. I like the freshness and the excitement of a blog. Now because I feel that way, I have an official author BLOG. I have blog posts there that contain fiction and announcements about writing. I also post articles about writing.

In other words it’s about me but it’s also about writing in general.

My personal blog is the original blog. It’s my older child. It has fun stuff, like my weekly rants! I get a lot of responses to those rants! A good moan is good for each of us!

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

I’d like to tell my readers that I want more than anything to hear from them. I want them to share with me their feelings about what they’ve read. I want readers to enjoy my fiction. And most especially I want to write thought-provoking fiction with unforgettable characters. I want so much to give my readers something to remember.

Thank you so much, Carole, for taking this opportunity to allow all us readers to find out more about you and your writing style.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from Coffee Time Romance & More in return for my honest review. I have not received, nor will I receive any monetary compensation in return for this review, whether positive or negative. Promotional banners and information was provided through NURTURE Virtual BOOK Tourz™. I am an authorized Tour Host.

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